castlefandomcom-20200223-history
After Hours
After Hours is the eighth episode of the fifth season of Castle. Summary In the aftermath of a disastrous “Meet the Parents” dinner, a bickering Castle and Beckett are sent to retrieve the only witness to a murder. But when they get ambushed, they’re forced to take the witness on the run. Stranded in the middle of the night in a bad part of town, with no phone, badge or gun, Castle and Beckett must find a way to protect him from a team of mobsters who want him silenced — that is, if they don’t kill each other first. Recap Father Joel McMurtry, a Catholic priest, arrives at an abandoned building on the summons of an unknown party, but is ambushed by an assailant with a gun and murdered. The next night, Castle and Beckett are engaged in a 'meet the parents' dinner which, although starting off promisingly, soon becomes uncomfortable and awkward when the differing personalities of their parents begin to clash; Martha makes a disparaging comment about baseball being boring which Jim, a keen fan of the sport, does not appreciate, while Jim makes a tactless comment about Martha's flighty nature that offends her. As the tension grows worse, Beckett receives a call about the discovery of the murder of Father Joel and she and Castle take the opportunity to make their excuses and flee. At the crime scene, Castle and Beckett swap notes on the disastrous dinner and what went wrong. Their discussion prompts Castle to observe that, as Jim and Martha are from different worlds, this should have been expected. The comment seems to annoy Beckett, prompting a barbed response that, to Castle, appears to place all the blame for the failed dinner on Martha ("Yeah, well, your mother should have been more sensitive to that."). The investigation into Father Joel has revealed that not only has he come out of his way from his parish to the abandoned building where he was killed, but that the killer appears to have been a marksman who picked up the spent shell casings after himself, suggesting that Father Joel was the target of a professional assassin. As Esposito contacts a nun who worked with Father Joel to interview her, Ryan brings word that a bartender at a nearby bar has information that he will only reveal to a detective. As Beckett and Castle go to interview the bartender, Ryan and Esposito are assigned to interview the nun—prompting Ryan to reveal a discomfort around nuns as a result of his Catholic school education. Beckett and Castle learn from the bartender that a customer, Leo, entered the establishment the previous night claiming to have heard gunshots and seen someone leaving the building where Father Joel was killed, making Leo a potential witness. The bartender is able to furnish Beckett and Castle with an address in the Bronx for Leo, and they go to pick him up. Meanwhile, as Esposito and Ryan interview the nun—during which Esposito finds himself less equipped to deal with her intimidating nature than he had previously assumed, much to Ryan's satisfaction—and they learn from her that Father Joel was a childhood friend of Mickey Dolan, an Irish mobster and enforcer for the O'Reilly crime family. Father Joel was always trying to save Dolan from his life of crime, but they had a heated argument several days before his death, and the nun is convinced that Dolan is responsible for Father Joel's death. As they go to pick up Leo for questioning, Beckett disregards Castle's concerns about parking her car in the bad neighborhood he lives in. They begin discussing the meal with their parents again, only this time tempers flare as the two become equally defensive of their respective parent's conduct during the meal while simultaneously blaming the other's parent for what went wrong. Their increasingly bitter argument is interrupted when, as they are knocking at Leo's door, they are ambushed by armed men sent by Dolan to collect Leo. The tense stand-off is interrupted when Leo finally answers the door, and Castle and Beckett seize the opportunity to get the drop on their attackers and flee into Leo's apartment, losing their phones and Beckett's badge and service weapon in the process. Leo panics as he learns that his actions at the bar the previous night have summoned Dolan's men, who appear to be trying to dispose of the witness to their boss's murder. As Dolan's men try to break down the door, Castle, Beckett and Leo escape out of Leo's apartment through the window and flee down the alleyway, only to discover that—as Castle had warned—Beckett's car has been stolen. They are thus forced to flee through the streets on foot. Back at the precinct, Ryan and Esposito discover that Dolan's apartment is empty and that, according to the NYPD's Organized Crime Taskforce, Dolan himself has dropped off the radar as rumours have begun to spread that something big is going to be happening; it is surmised that a turf war or power struggle within the O'Reilly family is brewing. However, even if Dolan can be found, the police are lacking evidence to charge him with Father Joel's murder. Ryan and Esposito attempt to send Dolan's mugshot to Beckett in order to get Leo's confirmation of his identity, but find they are unable to get ahold of her, while her car has been traced on the Jersey Turnpike. Captain Gates orders Ryan to contact state troopers to intercept the car and for Esposito to go to Leo's address to make contact with Beckett and Castle in person. Avoiding the mobsters hunting them in their car, Castle, Beckett and Leo attempt to take stock of their situation. The only payphone they can find has been vandalised, there are no twenty-four hour businesses in the area, and as it is a sketchy neighborhood there are likely to be few people on the streets they can call upon for help at this time of night. Castle tries buzzing an apartment at random to either seek help or to provoke the occupant to either helping them or calling the police to deal with his disturbing the peace, but the occupant is neither in the mood to help and informs Castle that the police do not respond to calls in that neighborhood, threatening to take care of Castle personally if he doesn't stop. The tension prompts more arguing between Castle and Beckett, with Beckett angrily blaming Castle for their current predicament. Both Castle and Leo are equally surprised when Beckett, apparently in a rage as a result of the argument, breaks the window of a nearby car, only for her to reveal that she has found a cellphone in the front. Unfortunately, the phone is password protected and the car alarm summons the mobsters who are chasing them, forcing them to flee again. Upon arriving at Leo's apartment, Esposito discovers it has been ransacked with no sign of Castle, Beckett or Leo and raises the alarm. Castle, Beckett and Leo take shelter in a nearby play area as the mobsters cruise the area looking for them. While Leo panics again, Castle suggests that if he can hack the phone, he can use it to summon help. Dismissive of his suggestion, Beckett suggests they instead make a run for the nearest subway ("Now she wants to take the subway!"). Castle ridicules her suggestion and insists that the subway is unreliable, prompting another petty sniping match between the two and prompting Leo to remark that he is beginning to feel like he'd be safer with the mobsters. Castle and Beckett reach an unwillingly compromise; if Castle cannot hack the phone in ten minutes, they will go for the subway. As Esposito monitors the crime scene investigation at Leo's apartment, Gates surmises that Dolan has sent men to collect Leo to dispose of the witness, and Castle and Beckett got caught in the middle. Having been alerted to the incident by Esposito, Martha and Jim arrive at the precinct demanding to know what has happened. Unsatisfied by Gates' attempt to reassure them ("Oh, please stop! You are a terrible actress."), they are adamant that they will not leave the precinct until they learn what has happened to their children. Ryan reveals to Gates that they have discovered that while most of Dolan's crew has gone underground or fled the city, one man—Colin Clark—has not yet managed to escape the city. Determined to find out what is going on and recover Castle and Beckett, Gates orders Clark brought in. Castle's attempts to hack the phone are unsuccessful, and Beckett and Leo are unimpressed when he learns that he has narrowed the password down to the name of the phone owner's cat. Salvation would seem to be at hand when the phone owner, having discovered her phone has been stolen, calls the number, but all she does is angrily rant and threaten Castle, misinterpret his insistence that they are in danger as a threat, and hang up. While she reveals the phone password in the process, she remotely disables the phone seconds after Castle unlocks it, rendering his efforts pointless. As Castle throws away the phone in frustration, Beckett notices a cab driving past. The three run to hail it, only for Leo to trip and sprain his ankle on the way. Castle and Beckett beg the driver to help them, but the suspicious and wary driver is unconvinced by Beckett's claims that she is a cop and dismisses Castle's offers of $1000 (and his expensive watch) for his services with a contemptuous laugh, driving past them. At that point, the mobsters return, and Castle, Beckett and Leo are forced to take hiding in the basement of an unoccupied store nearby, with the mobsters gradually narrowing down their location. Gates interrogates Colin Clark at the precinct; he is uncooperative, but Ryan picks up on his blunt dismissal of Gates' suggestion of a looming family feud. Suspecting that they might have been approaching the situation the wrong way, he approaches the Tech division with video of Dolan and Father Joel's argument before the priest's death to see if they can gain any indication of what the two men might have been arguing about, and what Dolan was really involved in. In the basement, as Leo tends to his sprained ankle, Beckett discovers a leaflet for a nearby 24-hour Chinese restaurant and suggests they can go there for help. Castle, meanwhile, has discovered an old CB radio and is trying to fix it to send a message to the outside world. Castle is rankled by Beckett's contemptuous dismissal of his efforts and the two begin fighting again before Leo—having been increasingly annoyed with their tension all evening—finally demands to know exactly what is going on between them. When Castle reluctantly reveals the information about their failed dinner with their parents, Leo realizes that they are lovers as well as partners, and with the benefit of over a thousand hours of therapy (albeit as a patient) confidently informs them that they are only using their parents as an excuse to argue—the real issue lies between the two of them. Back at the precinct, Jim and Martha begin to bond. Martha is apologetic and distraught when she realizes that Jim had interpreted her dismissal of baseball as a dismissal of him, before finally breaking down and admitting that she doesn't know how Jim manages to cope with Beckett's job, confessing that she finds it hard to accept the dangers her son puts himself in as part of his new pursuit in life. Jim admits that he still has difficulty accepting his daughter's decision to join the police over a decade later, but tells Martha that Beckett has admitted that she feels safer knowing Castle is watching her back. Martha acknowledges that Castle has told her that he in turn feels safer knowing Beckett has his back. In the basement, both Castle and Beckett have been unsettled by Leo's insistence that there is an unresolved issue between them. While they initially deny the truth of his words, Castle finally admits that he was hoping that the dinner would go well and lashed out at Beckett as a result when it didn't. Beckett in turn admits that Castle's earlier statement that Jim and Martha are "from two different worlds" dredged up her insecurities that the same applies to Beckett and Castle themselves ("You're like this world-famous bestselling author, and I'm just this cop, and we're in this relationship that makes no sense on paper..."); she is worried that if and when "the bubble bursts" they will ultimately prove just as incompatible as Jim and Martha are, and that their relationship is doomed to inevitably fail as a result. Their soul-searching is interrupted when Castle gets the radio working again; the microphone is broken, however, and while they can pick up messages from the outside world, they are unable to transmit anything but static. Leo reports that the mobsters have gone, and over Beckett's protests Castle volunteers to go by himself to the Chinese restaurant to seek help; they cannot take Leo with his injured ankle, and Beckett as a cop must stay to protect the witness. Beckett and Castle kiss before Castle leaves to seek help. At the precinct, investigation of the film clip reveals that after Father Joel and Dolan argued, Father Joel was contacted by federal agents in an unmarked car. Ryan, Esposito and Gates conclude that Father Joel was a federal informant and Dolan murdered him to silence him. In the basement, Beckett—visibly worried about Castle—attempts to use the radio to send a morse message to the outside world. Leo reveals that he overheard their earlier conversation and advises Beckett that life is short, and that she should enjoy what she has with Castle now rather than worry about what will happen in a hypothetical future. Outside, Castle finds the Chinese restaurant, but before he can enter it he is intercepted by Dolan's enforcers and hustled into the back of a car, whereupon he comes face to face with Dolan himself. Castle refuses to let Dolan know where Beckett and Leo are, convinced that Dolan is likely to kill him anyway and resolved to protect them as best he can. Dolan instead deduces Beckett and Leo's location from Castle's responses to his questions, and orders one of his men to retreive them. Afterwards, Dolan claims he has no intention of killing Castle, Beckett or Leo—he merely wants to talk to Leo to find out who killed Father Joel, his lifelong best friend. Gates, Ryan and Esposito meet with a federal agent who is reluctant to answer their questions about Dolan. Eventually, however, he informs them that Father Joel was not informing on them about Dolan's operations—however, he had been working with the authorities to convince Dolan himself to become an informant against the O'Reilly family in exchange for immunity, thus prompting the O'Reilly family to start going underground. Dolan had been picked up by the feds to discuss terms, only to escape from their custody after learning about Father Joel's death. Ryan, Esposito and Gates realize that the O'Reilly family are behind Father Joel's death, not Dolan—seeking to silence Dolan, they have murdered Father Joel to draw him out and kill him in turn. In the basement, Beckett and Leo ambush the enforcer sent by Dolan to collect them, but Beckett is shocked when Leo dispatches the enforcer with surprising and ruthless efficiency, before turning a gun on Beckett. She realizes that Leo is the actual assassin, having murdered Father Joel and posed as a witness knowing that Dolan would come after the killer seeking revenge, and claiming to be the witness as cover to get close to him. Leo orders Beckett at gunpoint to speak to Dolan over the phone and arrange a meeting, but Beckett is unwilling to do so without first making sure Castle is safe and well. As Castle assures her that he is convinced Dolan simply wants to talk, Beckett expresses regret that their dinner didn't go well and suggests that they and their parents do something all four of them will enjoy to make up for it, such as a baseball game. On their way to the rendezvous point, Leo admits that he found Castle and Beckett's complicated relationship fascinating, but since he's going to have to kill all of them it's a shame they won't be able to sort it out ("Still, like I said -- life is short.") To Beckett's horror, once they encounter Dolan's car he empties the clip of his gun into it without ceremony, only to discover that the car is empty—Dolan has prepared for Leo's ambush. Castle reveals that he got Beckett's veiled message that something was wrong when she alluded to their parents going to a baseball game, knowing full well that the argument at dinner had started when Martha dismissed the sport ("Once you said that, I knew we were at least six months away from joking about that -- something had to be up."). Upon confronting the man who killed his best friend, Dolan is about to shoot Leo in cold blood, but Castle persuades him not to in tribute to Father Joel, who never gave up trying to redeem him. Leo insists that the O'Reillys will simply send someone else to kill Dolan, to which Dolan replies that he can live with that. As the police arrive to secure the scene and arrest the mobsters, Beckett and Castle joyfully hug, Beckett filled with relief that she hasn't lost the man she loves. Castle returns her badge and gun to her, and they approach one of the police officers to seek help in returning to Manhattan; the police officer summons a cab for them with no problem. Back at the precinct, Ryan, Esposito and Gates express relief on seeing Castle and Beckett back safe and sound. Ryan reveals that Dolan has surrendered himself to the feds and offered to serve jail time for his crimes, again in tribute to Father Joel, and Gates reveals to Castle and Beckett that their parents are waiting in the precinct for them. Beckett is apprehensive about once again dealing with the issues their parents have raised, but Castle assures her that they are not their parents, and that it doesn't matter if their relationship doesn't make sense on paper, as they don't live their lives on paper and it just means that they are able to be surprised. As a perfect example of this, both are utterly astounded to see their parents emerge from the break room now getting along very well indeed, before simply deciding to run with it. The episode ends with Beckett hugging her father as Castle attempts to process this development in the relationship of their parents. Promo Cast Main Cast *Nathan Fillion as Richard Castle *Stana Katic as Detective Kate Beckett *Jon Huertas as Detective Javier Esposito *Seamus Dever as Detective Kevin Ryan *Tamala Jones as Dr. Lanie Parish *Penny Johnson Jerald as Captain Victoria Gates *Molly Quinn as Alexis Castle (credit only) *Susan Sullivan as Martha Rodgers Guest Cast *Tony Denison as Michael "Mickey" Dolan *Patrick Fischler as Leo *Scott Paulin as Jim Beckett *Bonita Friedericy as Sister Mary *Jamison Haase as FBI Agent Lucas *Jonathan Emerson as Father Joe McMurtry *Josh Feinman as Jerry Jenkins *Devin McGinn as Colin Clark *Bryan Friday as Thug #2 *Daniel Steven Gonzalez as Bronx PD Officer *Bart Braverman as Cabbie *Glenn Herman as Burly Tenant Quotes :Castle: I’m just saying, there have been worse dinners. :Beckett: Like what? :Castle: Well, the dining scene from Alien comes to mind. :Beckett: Honestly, a creature bursting out of my dad’s chest might have lightened the mood. :Castle: I guess we should have expected it. They come from such different worlds. :Ryan: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a second. We're interviewing a nun? :Esposito: Yeah, and I'm gonna be the good cop, you're gonna be the bad cop. So... :Ryan: Nun walks into a precinct... It’s like the beginnings of a bad joke. :Esposito: Want to borrow a comb or something? :Ryan: Shut up. :Esposito: You know what this reminds of? One of those body switching movies where a guy looks like a grown man when he's actually 12. :Ryan: Hey. Let me tell you something. Catholic school is like combat. Unless you’ve been there you don’t know. :Esposito: Uh, I have been there. In combat. And it’s way worse than some old lady. :Castle: 'If I can figure out the passcode for this phone, we could use it. :'Beckett: So your the boy with the dragon tatoo now? There is like ten thousand possibilities. :Castle: No. But I've seen every episode of MacGyver. What? :Leo: How did you get on to me? :Mickey Dolan: I wish I could say I figured it out, but Shakespeare over here made the call . :Castle: Once you made that comment about my mom enjoying baseball — I knew we were six months away from joking about that — I knew something had to be up. Featured Music * "Call Me Maybe" - Carly Rae Jepsen Trivia * Patrick Fischler previously worked with Stana Katic in the feature film Big Sur. * Kate and her father's love of baseball was previously touched on in "Suicide Squeeze", as was Castle's lack of interest in it. This hasn't kept Martha and Castle from being friends with baseball legend Joe Torre. * This isn't Martha's first meltdown at a dinner. In "A Dance With Death" her thin-skinned nature lead to a similar confrontation with renowned theater critic Oona Marconi despite inviting her to dinner specifically to mend fences with her. * The emotional scars from Ryan's Catholic school education have come up before. When being tortured by Hal Lockwood, Ryan explained that he'd attended Catholic school for 12 years and they would torture him similarly just for talking in class. ("Knockdown") * Beckett's resistance to entering a relationship with Castle has always been grounded in her fears about Castle's bad-boy ways. In this episode, she reveals a second reason for her concerns: her sense that he comes from a much higher social class than her, and that the difference in status might be too much for the relationship to work. * When Castle asks Kate "Dude, where's your car?", it is a nod to the comedy movie "Dude Where's My Car?" starring Ashton Kutcher and Sean William Scott. * In this episode Castle is trying to figure out the passcode for unlock a cellphone. In reality you don't need a passcode to call 911 or even an active service plan. References Related links Category:Season 5 Category:Season 5 episodes Category:Episodes